Getting out of New York can be a pain and a total time suck. Especially if you wake up at noon on a beautiful December day off and decide to ride a track bike 30 miles north out of the city.
Gotta get to the George Washington Bridge fast!
I’ve been obsessing over these hiking trails right at the New York/New Jersey state line, in the Palisades State Park. They cut from route 9W to the state line and further into New York along the Hudson. There’s even some hidden mountain bike trails through the same area of woods. If you’re ambitious you can connect through on some roads to Tallman Mountain State Park, back to River Road, and up to Hook Mountain State Park. Exploring along the hudson can be rad, and it’s hard to believe you’re just a little ways out of New York City once you lose the city skyline from view. The further you get north along the Hudson, the view across could really be almost any small northeast town. One of my new favorite stops along the journey is State Line Cafe. Despite it’s total lack of vegetarian or vegan friendly fare, it’s a nice little pit stop before hitting civilization again. Plus the building is pretty kitschy and you can run into an interesting mix of tourists and locals, considering most of the hiking trails through the area either start or end right around State Line Cafe. The view from the cliff’s hanging over the Hudson from here are absolutely amazing.
Incredibly grateful for the company of Jess Meany of Stans/Endurance Werx women’s team for always being down for adventures and for sucking my wheel the entire way up and back on this trip. Sorry, had some hammer in my legs this day!
